There’s No Place Like Home

At this year’s Game Developer Conference, Phil Harrison delivered Sony’s keynote speech.  In it he described the philosophical Game 3.0 saying that the future is all about the “connected” console empowered by the users who are at the center of the entertainment experience.  He then showcased Sony’s Home, a 3D social-networking service for the PlayStation 3.  While the features he described were incredible, Sony’s Home should immediately be confronted with skepticism.  It appears that the “user empowerment” Harrison mentioned seems to be more along the lines of the user economically empowering Sony.  The service seems anxious to draw in a broad audience rather than focusing on providing a first class online service for its faithful user base.

Sony stands to make a great deal of money with Home whether or not it actually competes directly with Xbox Live.  Everything a user does will be connected in some way to advertising.  Sony Bravia TV will play the latest movie trailers.  The central lounge will be adorned with physics based advertising banners and movie-theatre-sized screens projecting high definition videos.  I have no fundamental problem with this advertising because it will keep the service, which is free, up and running.  However, Sony also plans on incorporating non-gaming related brands and a bevy of micro-transaction opportunities as well, and that is where the problem lies.  The inclusion of non-gaming brands, such as new leather couches for “in Home” apartments, hint that Sony is more interested in making Home into a 3D virtual world for the general public rather than for its loyal PlayStation 3 users.

We all know too well the Sony that attempts to push its products as your one-stop solution.  It hasn’t fared well in the past, and why should it be any different with Home?  Despite its amazing features, Home will still not provide gamers a quick and universal way of finding their friends and jumping directly into a game.  Another factor to consider is that jumping from one 3D space to another will load much slower than an easily navigable 2D user interface such as the Xbox Live Dashboard.  While everyone is hailing Home as the impervious lovechild of MySpace and Second Life, it is missing some very key ingredients that are necessary for a good gaming experience.  Sony needs to offer a stripped down version of Home that keeps its typical users in mind or it might just have to count its over-engineered online service as another failure.  They’re desperately hoping that Home will expand their user base, but how many people are going to plunk down half-a-grand for a lovechild when the parents can be played online without having to spend a penny?

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